Promotional Information

A charismatic cult leader is dead. One by one his followers are being assassinated. Sawn in half, beheaded, skinned alive. Enter Gallio.

About the Author

Richard Beard's most recent book is Acts of the Assassins, which was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.

In the twenty years since his first book he has published critically acclaimed novels and narrative non-fiction, including Becoming Drusilla, the story of how a friendship between two men was changed by a gender transition.

He was formerly Director of the National Academy of Writing in London, and is now a Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. He is an optimistic opening batsman for the Authors Cricket Club.

Reviews

Brilliantly original and absurdly compelling ... it’s a book you’ll read in one, frantic gasp
*Guardian*

Brilliantly original and absurdly compelling ... it’s a book you’ll read in one, frantic gasp
*Guardian*

Richard Beard is one of those rare writers whose novels are at once radically inventive and brilliantly entertaining. Acts of the Assassins … is as joyously original as it is a page-turner to read
*Daily Mail*

The Acts of the Assassins is…spectacularly successful. It is thoughtful and clever and brutal and true… It is a Chinese puzzle box of a novel. A garden of forking paths. A page-turner. A modern classic
*Book Munch*

Extraordinarily funny...confident and enchanting
*Guardian*

It is a darkly funny, virtuoso performance… so cleverly done it almost winks at the reader
*Sunday Times*